An optical network can comprise a plurality of components and network nodes connected to each other via optical fiber spans. Conventional optical networks are operated based on passive and pre-calculated network rules. These network rules typically represent pessimistic network design, and require exhaustive system verification effort. Thus, conventional approaches do not scale well with the increasing network complexity and provide a sub-optimal operation of the optical network.
Conventional optical transport networks typically employ capacity provisioning and allocations and can use pre-calculated performance tables and hard-coded engineering rules relating to the network, i.e. the fiber types of the optical fiber links, the underlying optical link infrastructures, the modulation types, the data rate and error correction capabilities. The passive pre-calculated network rules employed in a conventional network can only provide a passive inflexible reaction diminishing the performance of the optical network. Accordingly, there is a need to provide a method and apparatus for optimizing dynamically the performance of an optical network to react dynamically to changes within the optical network.